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Tweleelee, Version 1
Category: Handclap rhyme
Source: Azizi Powell Collection
{Pittsburgh, PA, Northview Heights section, 2000
Introduction Tweleelee Tweleelee
Tweleelee
Tweleelee Tweleelee
Popsicle, Popsicle,
Your butt stinks!
Verse 1
He rocks in the treetops
all day long
a rockin and a boppin
and ah singin his song.
All the little birds on
Jay bird street
like to hear the robin
go “tweet, tweet” tweet.”
Verse 2
Mama’s in the kitchen
cookin rice.
Daddy’s downstairs shootin dice.
Brother’s in jail payin bail.
Sisters’ on the corner sellin
fruit cocktail.
In
the 1960s “Rockin’ Robin” was a hit Rock & Roll song for Bobby
Day. In the 1980s the Jackson Five also recorded
“Rockin’ Robin”. “Tweleelee”
is a parody of “Rockin’ Robin”.
A “parody” of a song uses the original song’s tune and some
of its words to make a witty and funny new creation.
African Americans in Pittsburgh who are in their mid 30s now (in
2004) tell me that when they were in their teens they used to do
handclap rhymes while reciting a similar version of “Tweleelee" .
Instead of saying "Popsicle, Popsicle, your butt stinks", some people remember saying "Twista baby twista baby, your
butt stinks!" (or "your breath stinks !").
Both the Jackson Five’s and Bobby Day’s song started with an
introduction or
chorus that begins with the phrase “Tweleelee, tweleelee, tweleelee”.
Both of these R&B songs include the verse “He rocks in the treetops etc.”
But none of these songs have “nasty” verses like the second verse
that I have included here.
Sometimes that verse goes "brother
in jail peeing in a pail".
And the reference to the sister "selling fruit cocktail" means that she
was being a prostitute.
There are raunchier verses of Tweeleelee that aren't included here, Older children are usually reluctant to recite all of
Tweleelee’s verses around adults.
After a 2000 cultural presentation in the Northview Heights
(Pittsburgh, PA) housing development, I asked children and pre-teens
attending the session to share some rhymes & chants with me that they knew. Someone started chanting “Tweleelee” and everyone joined
in. Some of the younger boys & some
of the elementary & middle school aged girls also paired up and started
doing hand-clap rhymes while reciting this rhyme. All of the children &
youth there recited the two verse presented above and then
continued on, chanting what I call the “James
Brown” verse to this rhyme. In the
different versions that I have collected from Pittsburgh, this verse
starts with a person going "downtown" (or "to the supermarket" or "to Giant Eagle", Pittsburgh’s supermarket chain) to get a stick of
butter. The verse continues
with the person seeing James Brown (probably the famous R&B singer)
sittin, layin or “poopin” in the gutter. The
verse continues by saying that James Brown has a piece of glass in his butt.
The original word was probably “ass” because the next line says
“I never saw a Black man run so fast (or "I never knew a Black man could run so fast”).
The Northview Heights girls & boys began another verse
that I hadn’t heard before. However,
an older girl gave some verbal signal for the younger children to stop
chanting. She said something
like “Squash it!” Some of
the younger children were really into the chant, and the older girl had
to say it again before they stopped in mid sentence. Regrettably,
I never did hear the rest of that verse.
I’m sure that the younger children who recite
“Tweleelee” may like it because of of the funny sounding word “tweleelee”.
This word is probably a representation of the sounds of birds
chirping, since a common way of writing it is “tweet”, “tweet”.
Younger children may consider this chant as just another hand
clapping rhyme, but , when they recite the words "fruit cock tail" both
younger and older girls either move their hands in a suggestive fashion
down their hips and thighs, or shake their hips from side to side, or
both. Younger children may think that the “fruit
cocktail” mentioned in the chant is a dessert, but I'm sure that the older youth know
that this is a reference to prostitution.
Quite a few of the African American adults
who were in charge of these after-school and
summer sessions in which I performed either knew this rhyme from hearing
these or other children recite it or from reciting it themselves.
Often the adults would try to stop the children from reciting "Tweeleelee",
saying that it was too "nasty" or that the group should come up with some
other rhyme to share.
In 2004, “Tweeleelee” still appears to be widely known among
African American children and youth in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This
rhyme also is known in other parts of the eastern region of the United
States, and perhaps elsewhere in this country. In 2001, I heard a
relatively clean version of this rhyme from my much younger
Philadelphia cousins. Thank you, cousins! I also would like to thank
visual artist Yasmin Hernandez who visited this site and sent me a similar
version of Tweeleelee that she and others recited in the early 1980s in
her Puerto Rican neighborhood of
East
New York (Brooklyn). Yasmin mentions that the girls in her neighborhood
made dramatic motions while performing this handclap rhyme, especially to
the words "fruit cock tail". Thanks also to Janette Cabales who
remembers performing a version of this hand clap in elementary school in
Norfork, VA. In this version "mama's in the kitchen cookin fried
chicken, daddy's in bed almost dead, brother's in school actin a fool, and
sister's in the corner, sayin fruit cocktail." Admittedly, this is a
much cleaner (although not always rhyming) version of this chant!
If you know of any other versions of
“Tweeleelee” please share them with CocoJams!
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